We’ve just released version 2.0 of Taskmatics Scheduler, which focused primarily on creation of a more intuitive, more powerful user interface. We also packed in a number of bugfixes, performance tweaks and stability improvements.

How to get it

The downloads page has been updated to provide a link to the 2.0.1 installer. Users needing to access an older installer for installation of agents of a previous version will also find those installers on the downloads page.

Featured Enhancements

This release brings with it some big enhancements, so we wanted to give a little bit more information about those:

New Improved Administrative Interface

From version 1.0, we wanted to give users a simple, advanced administrative interface that could be accessed via a web browser. We received a good amount of feedback on some of the areas of the UI that failed to meet that need and so in 2.0 we ironed many of those pain points out and made the most common workflows simpler to achieve, so you can spend less time in setup while also making it easier to find the information you’re looking for. Furthermore, because the new admin interface is written in straight HTML/Javascript, users can access it from a wide range of browsers.

Job Creation Wizard

One of the biggest difficulties that our users brought to us in the past was the complexity of the process around job creation. To create a job in previous versions of the platform, you had to start at the bottom and work your way up by:

Creating a fileset that contains your executable code.

Creating a definition that points to the fileset that can be used as a configurable template for creating your jobs.

Creating the job itself on top of the definition.

While all of these pieces are part of what makes Taskmatics Scheduler so versatile, users had to navigate to different areas to do each step, which made job creation more involved and time consuming.

In version 2.0, we have introduced a job creation wizard, which centralizes and simplifies the job creation process while continuing to provide the same level of versatility from the older versions. The goal of the wizard is to direct the user through the components of job creation in a straightforward way.

Configurable Runtime Users

You can now configure jobs to run under a specified set of credentials. In previous versions, we allowed users to specify a runtime user for the Agent process, which would be used to execute all Jobs created in the system. Under the new system, the administration website has a new area for specifying runtime users that can be assigned to a job the same way we allow specifying an agent for a job. Jobs with a specified runtime user will execute under that user’s credentials, while those that do not have a specified runtime user will execute under the Agent’s runtime user credentials.

And Much More!

You can find the full release notes with all of the new features, bug fixes and improvements here.

Upgrade Instructions

As of now, we don’t have an upgradeable installer, which means that to upgrade an older installation of Taskmatics Scheduler, you should first uninstall the previous version and then simply run the new 2.0.1 installer and point to the existing database where the previous Taskmatics Scheduler install resided. Note: Uninstalling Taskmatics Scheduler will NEVER remove the data in your database. We suggest following these steps to install the new version on your system:

Stop all coordinator and agent Windows services (done from the Services snap-in).

Backup your existing database and the filesets in your fileset root folder. This is precautionary in case anything unexpected happens during the upgrade.

Take note of the following information from your current installation:

Your serial number, which is in your email you got when you purchased Taskmatics Scheduler. You can also find it in the license.xml file in the ProgramData\Taskmatics\Scheduler directory.

Your current database server, database name and the runtime credentials. These can be found in the ProgramData\Taskmatics\Scheduler\Taskmatics.Scheduler.Coordination.ServiceHost.exe.config file.

The runtime users for both the coordinator and agent Windows services, which you can see from the services snap-in.

The root filesets path and the root working folders path, which are found in the .config files located in the ProgramData\Taskmatics\Scheduler directory.

Uninstall the existing Taskmatics Scheduler components (done from the Programs and Features screen in Windows)

Run the new Taskmatics.Scheduler installer. You will need to re-enter the information you collected in step 3 to make sure that all the original permissions and mappings are re-used.